


From here to Birmingham I got a few friends

by sandyk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Minor Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Suicide, Suicide in the past, a kind of time travel, another different Peter Parker mcu origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26132680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Peter Parker's mother died by suicide, and thanks to the trolls of Midtown at least two thirds of the school knows. Maybe less. But it's enough for Peter to start talking about it.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Mary Fitzpatrick, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	From here to Birmingham I got a few friends

**Author's Note:**

> Mention of suicide and discussions of mental health conditions. Please take care of yourself. If you need help: Crisis Text Line, Text NAMI to 741-741 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255. Outside the US: [International Suicide hotlines.](http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html)
> 
> For the trope bingo spot psychological trauma fic. Title from tori amos's playboy mommy. Thanks so much A!!!!

Peter knew he should never have volunteered any information. Ned said, "These guys are such dicks." Ned was glaring at his screen while while he worked his magic. "And of course MJ was right."

"I'm always right," MJ said. She leaned over Ned's other shoulder. "I told you it was the same person. They ask the asshole questions and then answer it, giving them the opportunity to out their information." 

"That's some asshole trolling," Ned said. 

Peter exhaled heavily. "I knew I was being stupid."

MJ said, "You weren't being stupid. You were being yourself, you wanted to help people. And we're going to burn these assholes."

"But everybody still knows," Peter said.

"Only the students who read this bulletin board," MJ said.

"So only like half," Ned said. "Two thirds, max." 

Two weeks ago, a senior at Midtown died by suicide. Not someone Peter or Ned or MJ knew, but they knew students who did know them. The school did a program and set up talks and sent out guidance counselors. At some point, because as MJ said, Peter was trying to be nice, he said that he had a family member who had died by suicide. The secret bulletin board mean gossip blog of Midtown had a post "calling out the fakers" who were pretending to get attention. Naturally, someone replied saying so and so wasn't pretending and here's the facts. So everybody's family history and the like was out on display. 

Like it's fun for one half to two thirds of the school body and everyone they decide to tell, for all of those people to know Peter's mom died by suicide when he was six. Ned has a very determined look on his face. "Let's see, first we take screenshots, then we show who made the posts. Make it nice and digestible for Principal Morita. We send it to him. My anonymizer is better than yours, I can teach you but I'd have to charge," Ned chants. 

"At least they don't have the super juicy parts," Peter said, head cradled in his hands. "Right, Ned?"

"They just found a death certificate," Ned said.

MJ said, "That's not the juicy part?"

"I guess we're close enough to let you in on my tragic backstory. I mean, the part you don't know," Peter said, looking up from the table at her. 

MJ looked at him, steady, and then said, "No, it's cool."

Ned laughed. "It is so not cool, you are dying to know."

"I am, I am. I really want to know, but you don't have to tell me," MJ said. 

"It's not that juicy," Peter said. "Not really. My mother never told my dad I existed. He found out about me when they did the paternity test. He was really cool about it, though, took me right in and rearranged his whole life."

"You're right," MJ said. "That's not that juicy." 

"Peter's mom was a stone cold genius," Ned said. "I've seen some of her published papers. I don't understand them at all. That's where Peter got it."

MJ said, "Were you Peter Parker before?"

"Uh, no. I was Peter Benjamin. It's funny because it works as a middle name, too. I don't think she knew that when she picked it," Peter said. "She was a pretty good mom."

He told Mr. Stark when they were at lab day. "Principal Morita suspended the guy who posted everyone's private info and the two students running and modding the bulletin board. Then Ned basically nuked the site."

"Good for him," Tony said. "Excellent hacktivisming."

"No one says that," Peter said. 

He paced around instead of getting to work and Mr. Stark said, "What are you worried about? Stop pacing."

"I just, when Ben died and a friend of his did a search for any bank accounts or anything like that he'd forgotten about, he also looked for me and it turned out there was a deposit box, one my mom left? But honestly, we've just been sitting on most of it. Then this whole thing made me think, hey, maybe Mr. Stark can help?"

"With what?"

Peter said, "Well, there was a bunch of physical stock certificates. We looked it up and it's really, it's complicated. Neither of us know what to do with them. I think some of them might be worth money, some of it is, I guess worthless but --"

"Got it," Mr. Stark said. "Hand 'em over." 

"Great," Peter said. He dug in his backpack and handed over the folder. "Also, there's this journal. Mom had two journals in there. Not personal, just some really weird calculations. Very dense. I wondered if you could maybe look at it. I don't understand, I think I need about twenty more years of physics and maybe math and chemistry?"

"OOoh, that sounds much more exciting," Mr. Stark said. "Hand that over, too. FRIDAY we're going to need a full scan. Also, contact financial about getting these stocks handled for May and Peter." Tony started flipping through the pages and staring at the tiny handwriting. "Huh. This is very interesting, seriously. Man, if she'd published any of this," Tony said. He paused. 

"So you understand it?"

"Not yet," Tony said. "What else was in the box?"

"Oh, um. A bunch of pictures of me as a baby and a little kid. She opened it and put things in it, it was twenty days before she, um, she died."

Mr. Stark looked up from the journal and the notes he was already taking. He said, "You were there, right?"

Peter sat down at his table. "I was six. She locked me in my room." 

Mr. Stark was not looking at him, he appeared engrossed in the journal. But he said, "But you got out."

"Yeah," Peter said. "Why, do you want details?"

"No, I don't, but if you wanted to talk about it. It's helpful to share."

"Oh," Peter said. It was still weird when Mr. Stark was nice. When he was kind. So weird. Peter said, "Actually there was a note in the box. Addressed to me when I'm sixteen. I haven't opened it yet."

"You're not sixteen yet," Mr. Stark said. "What are you worried it will say?"

"I don't know," Peter said. 

"She loved you," Mr. Stark said. "It's not going to be something that changes that."

"You sound very confident," Peter said.

Mr. Stark shrugged, as he kept on taking notes. He said, "Are you worried your mother's mental illness is genetic? Passed down?"

"That's a very personal question," Peter said. 

Mr. Stark said, "I know, that's why I asked. Cause we've done a ton of physical tests on you and that's something we could look further into. I'm offering." 

"But only if I'm worried about it," Peter said. 

"Uh huh," Mr. Stark said. "Wow, your mom was a genius. She'd give Dad a run for his money."

"But not you?" Peter smiled.

"Yeah, I'd give Dad a run for his money, too. It's arrogant to compare her to me," Tony said. He smirked. 

"Anyway," Peter said to May while she made dinner. Sometimes it took days for their schedules to meet up. "So you should get a call from someone. You're my guardian, so I think you open the account on my behalf." Peter rubbed his forehead. "Do you think you would have liked my mother, if you knew her?"

May smiled. "Ben and I used to wonder that. I'm not sure. It sounds like she had two interests: science and you. You, I could talk about all day. Science not so much. Richard liked baseball and bluegrass music." May made her 'I hate bluegrass music' face. "You know, I don't think I could talk about you all day. Not when you were younger. We could debate parenting techniques. Ethics."

"She had interests," Peter said. "We had a TV."

"What'd you watch?" 

Peter said, "I remember Sesame Street, Star Trek. Star Trek, that's an interest."

"I love talking to Star Trek fans," May said, with a small smile. 

"I don't remember her having a lot of friends," Peter said. "But maybe she was popular on the internet."

May nodded. "It doesn't matter if I'd like her, because she loved you. You don't have to defend her."

"I know," Peter said. "Mr. Stark suggested I open the letter."

"Did he?" May started dishing out the mac and cheese. 

"He said I shouldn't worry because he was sure nothing in the letter would change that she loved me," Peter said.

May hesitated as she handed him his salad. "That sounds like good advice. I didn't know he did that kind of thing."

Peter started on his salad after adding about two tablespoons of ranch dressing. "He's not so bad."

"Apparently," May said. "He's right, though. Your mother loved you. I can tell by the kind of person you are."

"I think you and Ben and Dad had something to do with that, too," Peter said.

May shrugged. "She was your whole world for six years, she had a lot of influence."

Peter nodded. He said, "Okay, okay. I'll open it now."

He went and got it from under his bed. "Okay, here we go." Peter opened the envelope. It was just a sheet of notebook paper. He unfolded it.

"Oh my God." He dropped the letter on the floor. 

"Holy shit," May said.

Tony came over very quickly. He probably flew in his suit. He held up the letter and said, "'Petey, I'm so proud of you Spider-man! Love your mommy.' Huh. That's freaky as shit, I understand why you called me."

"How did she know that? How did she know that in 2007?" Peter's voice cracked.

Tony said, "She was working on time viewing, like viewing the future or the past. That's ninety percent of her journal, the engineering schematics and theories involved. It must have worked. She saw you being Spider-man in a possible future, probably more than one and wrote that letter. She was really a genius."

May said, "Time viewing? Like a window or something? Like on TV?"

"Well, I haven't seen a show with this exact thing. I told you, that journal was gripping. It's been three days, I've barely slept. Pepper doesn't appreciate it." Tony put the letter down on the table. 

Peter said, "She could see into the future?" He looked at the letter and his mom's familiar handwriting. 

"Peter, stop," Tony said. May glared at him. Tony said, "Your mother was mentally ill, at least since she was fourteen. She tried, she attempted to die at least three times there are records of, including once when you were two." May looked furious. 

Tony said, "So no, Peter, she wasn't thinking about making sure you had your best future and taking herself out to arrange that. She just wasn't. You continue to not be responsible in any way for your mother's choices."

May said, "Didn't like how that started, but I came around at the end there. Peter, he's right." She was suddenly hugging Peter, patting his hair. 

Peter swallowed. "You don't know for sure."

"Yes I do. Mary wrote in her journal, she complained that she couldn't deal with faulty assumptions, people who would distort her work and try to create a different future. Everything is too complex for that to be even possible." Tony waved and suddenly his phone was showing an image big as a plate above the dinner table. "Right here." Tony pointed.

May stepped back and Peter leaned in and squinted. "I read both those journals, there wasn't any personal notes."

Tony said, "Do you read Chinese?" Tony did something to the screen and magnified one section. "Google my son my child."

May said, "You read Chinese?" 

Peter was at google translate. Tony said, "I'm not great. I've got some consultants, though."

Google translate showed the "simplified" characters for what Tony had said and it did match the part Tony had magnified. He showed May. 

May said, "See? Tony was right." She grimaced. 

Peter said, "What else did she write?"

"Lots of notes to clarify her thoughts about the engineering of the time window. Anticipating future arguments about its use, that's the part where she mentioned that trying to create a future from the past wouldn't work. And a lot of notes about you, that she loved you," Tony said. 

"That's nice to hear," Peter said. 

Tony said, "Now I'm going to hug you," and then he did. Another nice hug, Peter was really having a good day for people saying they cared about him with physical affection. 

"So, wait," Ned said. They were hanging out in his room, Ned, MJ, Peter. "Your mom built a window that could see the future?"

"And the past. It looked like one of the video games you see in old restaurants, where you sit at it and look down on the game," Peter said. "I just remember that I was never allowed to touch it." 

"But you did it anyway," MJ said. "Right?"

Peter didn't move and stared at the bottom of the top bunk. MJ shifted from where she was sitting against the wall, near his feet, and he felt her hand, soft on his calf. She said, "It's okay. Ned and I aren't judging your mom."

Peter said, "I never touched it, not ever. She could be really scary. Sometimes, by the time I was four, there were times when I was more, I'd take care of things for both of us. Don't tell. Don't tell May."

Ned said, "It's okay, Peter." There was a fairly charged silence.

Peter said, "I'm picturing the two of you having whole facial journeys over there."

Ned laughed. "More MJ than me."

"More Ned than me," MJ said. "So, basically, your mom created and built a large monitor that could see the future, the past, from different locations. Not using existing cameras. Just send it back and watch dinosaurs. Oh my God, do you think she saw who Jack the Ripper was?"

Ned laughed. "That's what you'd look at. I'd want to watch something else. Dinosaurs, probably."

Peter said, "I don't know what she looked at. It was only working for a few months. She destroyed it the day before she, you know. She made me stay in my room while she did it, but she destroyed all of it. And her laptop. And most of her journals. She burned it all in the backyard, in a shitty grill she had."

MJ said, "So it wasn't a this technology is not suitable for anyone to have, she was just --"

"Having an episode," Peter said. "Basically." He thought about sitting up, and then dropped the idea. "She really was a pretty good mom. Even when she had an episode, she would, she would put herself away from me. She did her best."

Ned patted his other leg. "It's okay if she wasn't. We wouldn't tell anyone you said that or felt that."

"I might tell," MJ said. "I just mean, it's not disloyal or whatever to say she did her best, but also, she was bipolar and she wasn't great about getting help, she chose to do everything by herself and she didn't have to, your dad was all over being a dad."

Ned said, "I think the important thing is that she saw you were Spider-man and she thought it was awesome."

"I can feel MJ rolling her eyes," Peter said. "Yes, MJ, I have occasional negative thoughts about my mom, but it doesn't matter, it's not like we can sit down and talk through it. So it's fine."

"That sounds so healthy," MJ said. 

"I don't think she's being sincere," Ned said. 

MJ said, "Fine. We'll change the subject. But also, if you and Stark figure out time travel you could go back and talk to her about it."

Ned said, "No, you can't. You could ruin the timeline. I know there's a lot of back and forth on this, Pete, but don't do it."

MJ said, "We're changing the subject. We're going to talk about Star Wars, I am making this gift to you losers."

It was really a gift. 

Peter dreamed he did go back in time but he was trying to find his mother in room after room and then when he found her, she was in a hospital bed and sedated. She said, "Right now, you're only seven."

He said, "No, then you'd be dead."

"Don't argue with me," she said with a smile. "I saw a future and you said you wanted to talk to me so I faked my death." Peter knew that wasn't true, one time he'd looked up the autopsy. His mom said, "So I could be here now for you to argue with me."

"I don't want to argue," Peter said. He sat down and thought he was crying quietly. Maybe he was crying in his sleep? "I wish you hadn't left me."

"I know, I fucked up a lot. It's hard in my head," she said. "There's elephants and dinosaurs and rotting fish."

"That's an image," Peter said. 

"I get to die now, we talked, the end," she said.

"You don't have to, you faked your death, you can go and hang out with me and Dad," Peter said. But the whole hospital room had melted away. He thought, in the dream, he was dreaming and he could go find her. But it was just even more rooms until he woke up at three a.m. He woke up and rubbed his wet cheeks. 

He didn't want to wake up May. He called Mr. Stark. Tony said, "Why are you up so late?"

"I just woke up, sorry," Peter said. 

"Hey, don't go, that's how I say hello," Mr. Stark said. "Bad dream? Nightmare? PTSD flashback?"

"No, no," Peter said. "I, um, I don't remember. Why are you up so late?"

There was a little silence, like maybe Mr. Stark would push. Instead he said, "I'm up early. Pepper and I had to do some call an hour ago and now I can't go back to sleep. I'm not even in the lab, I'm sitting on the couch deciding if I want to watch TV or just start wading through email. I sent your mom's distilled time window findings to Jane Foster, she seemed like she might be interested. She even emailed me back. Or her assistant emailed me. She has a great assistant. Too old for you. But you've got that MJ girl."

"We're not dating," Peter said. "I don't think she's interested in me."

"But you're interested in her," Mr. Stark said, laughing. "You didn't deny it." 

"I am, but," Peter said, relaxing back on his bed. 

They talked for almost an hour.


End file.
